


A Little Love (is better than none)

by objectlesson



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: 5 Times, Angst, Canon Compliant, Casual Sex, Drunk Sex, Fluff and Angst, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Happy Ending, M/M, Non AU, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Rimming, Up All Night era, epic miscommunication, flashbacks to the X-Factor house
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 08:12:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7707496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s supposed to be no strings attached sex, but Harry’s in love with beauty and tragedy and Louis Tomlinson so there might actually a few strings they’re not talking about.  </p>
<p>Or, alternately, the four times they fuck and don’t kiss, and one time they fuck and do (with a few more times thrown in because I’m a mess and know how to write short fics).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Love (is better than none)

**Author's Note:**

> FUCKING ONE DIRECTION???!!!! So I stumbled into the hellfire of being obbsessed with them about three months ago, and here I am. Please excuse any issues or errors, I'm grievously American and this is a very big fandom to digest in three months, so my canon-compliance might not be as compliant as I think it is? This takes place when they were living together at the Princess Park flat, so it's technically canon but I also am #absolutelycertain they started fucking before then so it also feels less than canon, but whatever. 
> 
> I don't even know if people in this fandom LIKE reading canon fic? There is so little? Anyway, regardless of whether or not there's an audience for it I WILL BE HERE WRITING IT, I feel like I AM MADE FOR THIS FANDOM. 
> 
> Huge huge huge thank you to Hurdy Gurdy, who is my loyal friend and beta, so loyal in fact she followed me bLINDLY into this fandom and let me send her emails full of timelines and videos to give her background information, and not only didn't complain but GLEEFULLY read this story over for me and brit picked it. Thank you thank you, so grateful <3

1.

The first time it happens, they don’t kiss. At least, not on the _mouth_. There are kisses (if you can call them that, and Harry _does_ ; he’s willing to take whatever he can get), wet and sharp with teeth on his throat, on his clavicles, on his stomach. 

He learns Louis is a biter (of course, and Harry should have known that, judging from the way his smile is so lopsided, the way he touches and pushes and pushes until it hurts), and that alone has him so _ruined_ that he just lets everything happen, lets Louis mouth desperately all over his ribs, his sternum. 

So, technically, there _are_ kisses, sloppy and slick between bites. There are hands, clumsy and too hot, pushed up under each other’s shirts and down the seat of each other’s jeans while they tumble in a graceless wreck on Louis’s hotel bed, grinding and thrusting and not-kissing. Harry’s shirt rides up, and he nicks the delicate skin of his hip open on Louis’s belt buckle, a sliver of white that fills immediately with blood, and as they tumble apart, Louis makes a wordless, wrecked noise before he bends his head to suck on that spot, tongue bitter with Jager as it sweeps over the ruined skin, making it sting. 

And it’s a lot. So much, _too_ much, even, with Harry’s head thrown back, and his teeth in his lip to silence all the noises he wants to make. His eyes are watering, and Louis’s mouth is _so wet_ , his hands so uselessly fumbling with Harry’s belt that he has to reach down and help him, fingers shaking as he wiggles out of his jeans and pants.

Louis is all wide hazy eyes and flushed cheeks, his hair everywhere, his hands splayed over Harry’s thighs as he stares at him, his cock leaking, twitching heavy and red against his stomach. And Louis is _drunk, terrifically drunk_ , and Harry is only tipsy, wondering in a surge of wild, fleeting panic if Louis will remember this in the morning. 

“Is this al’right?” Louis slurs, not waiting for an answer as he reaches for Harry’s cock, brow furrowed as he makes a fist around the length, tongue sweeping over his lower lip in visible anticipation. 

Harry nods because he can’t talk. He just lies there, propped up on his elbows, abdominals quaking and heart choking him silent as it thuds in his throat. He watches Louis very closely, the way his eyelids flutter closed, the way his pink lips part and slide down the shaft of his cock in a tight, perfect ring. He’s thought of this before, too many times to count. He’s fantasized endlessly about Louis sucking him off. A sober, present, loving Louis, perhaps, but Louis all the same. It’s a lot to take, this fantasy-become-reality thing, especially through the haze of drunken overwhelm, so maybe he comes apart a little. Makes fists in the duvet and groans low and hoarse, hips snapping up beyond his will, fucking into Louis’s mouth. 

It’s the wettest, sloppiest of blowjobs. It’s also the very best. Harry comes fast and hard and with no effort whatsoever on his own part, sprawled out easy and boneless, one long leg hooked messily over Louis’s back as Louis swallows and swallows. It’s the hottest fucking thing, Louis choking and drooling with his cheeks hollowed out, sure to be indelibly seared into Harry’s memory until the end of time, and he wonders again if Louis will remember in the morning. 

Louis pulls away with a wet smack, then he chuffs out a laugh, broken and hoarse, his breath huffing out against Harry’s thigh as he stumbles onto his hands and knees, he clambers over him, come on his chin, eyes so shiny. “Thanks,” he slurs, pressing a kiss to one of the moles on Harry’s chest, lips sticky. “That was’really nice.”

“Lemme get you off,” Harry murmurs in a daze, blinking back stars, perhaps drunker than he thought as his fingers brush down Louis’s still-heaving chest. He wants to jack him off, he wants to suck him, too. So many fantasies yet to become reality, so many things he wants, _needs_. 

Louis bats his hand away, then collapses next to him, unable to stay upright without his weight distributed evenly. “Nah,” he says, eyes closed. “Too drunk t’come.” 

“You sure?” Harry asks, vaguely disappointed but also dizzy, confused, trying not to read too much into a situation they haven’t _talked_ about yet. 

“Yeah,” Louis says, waving one of his hands in the air lazily, meaninglessly, casually. His eyes are closed, and Harry takes an opportunity to stare at him, in case this is the last time he’s ever here. Louis tenting his tight red jeans, Louis and his bare feet, his striped shirt rucked up around his belly button, his messy hair, his blotchy cheeks. So drunk and loose and spread out on this hotel bed, Louis with his hot-wet mouth, the same mouth he _licked Harry’s blood up with._

His stomach churns, a mess of yearning and confusion as he runs the tip of his index finger over the tiny wound beside his left hipbone, raw and nearly invisible, surrounded by the pink semicircle left by Louis’s teeth. 

Harry stands on unsteady legs and limps to the bathroom, shuddering. It’s a lot. So much, _too_ much, maybe, and he needs a drink of water; he needs to clean the come and spit out of his pubic hair so he can think clearly. 

He examines his reflection in the bathroom mirror, trying to memorize what he looks like all bright-eyed and fucked up from Louis’s hands, Louis’s mouth. He’s elated and terrified all at once, shaky hands and a wild heartbeat, staring at the way his hair is worried into messy dark tangles, at the way his skin shines from the wet of Louis’s mouth. He inhales raggedly and turns on the tap. 

As Harry washes his face, he tries not to get ahead of himself. This probably doesn’t mean what he _wants_ it to mean; he probably shouldn’t expect Louis to fling himself into his arms when he comes back into the room and profess his undying love. 

All the times Harry has imagined Louis blowing him (and there have been _so many_ ), it was never under these circumstances, not really. He always figured that if it were to happen, it would happen after he accidentally professed his _own_ undying love, got too drunk and accidentally let it slip that he’s been _pining_ for every part of Louis for what seems like, and what very well might be, forever. 

He blots his face dry with a tiny hotel towel, one that’s strewn carelessly on the counter beside Louis’s toothbrush and cologne and hair gel and contact solution and a million other uncapped, half-leaking things. The towel smells like Louis. Harry’s cock, although spent and soft between his thighs, throbs as he inhales. 

His stomach plummets. It might have been easier to be in love with Louis, quietly half-hoping it was mutual and drinking up Louis’s attention in the meantime, _before_ he knew what his sweat tasted like. Now he is doomed. 

Harry sinks to the floor, knees suddenly too wobbly to hold him. He’s grinning, but it’s a panicked grin, feral and too-wide, almost a grimace. He doesn’t like what he imagines himself looking like wearing it, so he covers his face in his hands, mentally thumbing through all the reasons why Louis Tomlinson might have sucked him off tonight. 

Flashes keep coming, filthy and burning. They were wrestling before it happened, playful and drunk, and Harry was hard already, always hard and trying to hide it when Louis touched him. 

He thinks of Louis straddling his lap, Louis looking at him with dark, hazy eyes before dipping down and fixing his mouth so certainly and deliberately to his pulse, sucking so hard it hurt. He hadn’t been sure if it was a joke, another move in their endless game of chicken, another dead-end flirtation, until Louis _groaned_ against his skin, tongue flicking out over the mark he just made, and Harry froze, because this was _it_. It was finally, _finally_ happening. 

His hands feel tingly and numb as he flexes them. He might be in shock, a little. After all, he’s been dreaming of this, wanting it wistfully ever since he first met Louis and then more acutely when he found out Louis was gay, and it became an actual, real possibility. 

It’s another sharp, distinct memory. Harry lying beside Louis on the living room floor at the X-Factor house, mourning doves cooing outside as dawn broke, their heads pillowed on their arms as they whispered excitedly about so many things. Harry was already half in love, sleepy and sleepless all at once, high on the dream of _winning_ and maybe, maybe, kissing Louis Tomlinson someday, too. 

Harry remembers yawning, minutes away from asking Louis if he was ready to go back up to the bedroom and catch an hour or two of sleep when Louis rolled onto his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling and lips flattening out into a firm, decisive line. “You know my girlfriend?” he had asked suddenly, hands folded over his chest. 

And Harry’s heart beat faster, his chest clenched in a sick cocktail of jealousy, disappointment, self-deprecation. “Yeah?” he asked in a small voice, swallowing everything else back because he didn’t want Louis to _know_ that he cared about things that weren’t his business to care about. 

“So, she’s not actually my girlfriend, she’s just my friend,” Louis confessed, eyes still fixed above him, voice a breathy, hushed thing. “We just _tell_ everyone we’re dating. Like, she’s one of my best friends, and we hang out all the time, so people teased us or assumed. Then we started joking about it, and we just decided that we might as well pretend we were, since everyone was already wondering, and it made people quit bothering me.” 

Harry’s mouth was _so_ dry, his cheeks pink in the dark because maybe, maybe. “Quit bothering you about what?” he asked. 

“About being gay,” Louis answered. It hung in the air, probably too good to be true, and Harry just laid there, curled in on himself trying to process it. “Is that ok?” Louis breathed after a loaded moment, voice sounding very fragile, and Harry snapped out of his silence, nodding his head rapidly. 

“Oh, god. Of course,” he said, voice cracking as he fumbled for Louis’s hand in the dark. They linked fingers, squeezing, and it felt electric. “I, um, me, too. Or, I’m not _gay_ , I definitely like girls, too, but I _also_ like boys.” 

Louis laughed, hand sweating in Harry’s, so much smaller than Harry expected it to feel, small and warm and perfect. _We fit together so good,_ Harry had thought wildly, desperately, wanting _more_ , wanting everything. 

“Okay, I thought, maybe...that you were,” Louis said on an exhale. “I’m so relieved.” 

“Yeah, me, too,” Harry had said, rolling over to face Louis, scooting closer, close enough to share breath. “Thought for sure it was just me.” 

“Really?” Louis snorted. “I always think I’m, like, so obvious. Don’t really try to hide it, anyway. But I guess the girlfriend thing goes a long way, right?” 

And they giggled together, knees brushing in the shadows, hands still linked while they talked about the kind of guys they thought were hot (David Beckham for Louis and young David Hasselhoff for Harry, even though he mostly said it to keep from listing other short, compact, chestnut-haired, blue-eyed boys who may or may not have looked like Louis). It was easy, and it felt normal, but it was also _charged_ , and Harry remembers being surprised it didn’t _go_ anywhere. 

But everything between them is charged, every moment, every touch, every look. At least, Harry thinks so, every moment leading up to tonight. Louis drunk and sucking him off so wet and wanting and hungry, eyes closed and lashes fluttering. 

And maybe it’s just _that_. The fact that Louis is, inevitably, hungry. Not specifically for Harry but just in general. Because there’s an endless stream of willing, wanting girls all flinging themselves at Harry and the rest of the band ever since X-Factor, and it’s _easy_ , so absurdly _easy_ , to get anything at all from them. But for Louis, it’s not. If there are boys, it’s too risky to _find_ them, too much of a gamble that they’ll keep their mouths shut.

Harry realizes, for perhaps the first time, that it _actually_ puts Louis’s career on the line for him to get laid. 

So, of course, he’s a convenient alternative to actually dating. 

Harry cards his hands through his hair, suddenly feeling very, very sober. He rises unsteadily, drinking some water straight from the tap and compiling a list of questions to ask Louis, hopefully things that aren’t too invasive, aren’t too much. _Do you like me, or is this just because you’re lonely and I’m your only friend who’s into boys? Will this ever happen again? What exactly do you want from me? (Because you can have anything, anything and everything you want.)_

After wiping his chin on his sleeve, he takes a deep breath and heads back into the room, only to find Louis passed out all over the bed. 

He looks so fucking stupidly beautiful like that, sprawled out in his clothes, mouth parted and chest rising and falling in time with his sleep breath. Harry briefly considers stripping down and curling up next to him, pillowing his head on his chest and drawing him close, like he wants to (like he’s _supposed to do_ , because loving Louis feels cosmic sometimes), but he knows that’s a presumptuous thing, loaded and heavy. 

Instead, he stands awkwardly in the bathroom door frame for a moment, watching and chewing his lip, before deciding it’s safer to slip on his shoes and leave. 

2\. 

The second time it happens, Harry tries to kiss him.

He’s blind, _thrilled_ that Louis is touching him like this again. (The first time was over a week ago, and he acted like he didn’t remember it in the morning, and Harry wasn’t sure if he was supposed to bring it up or not. Regardless, he felt terrified into silence, wanting so badly to have Louis close in any way that he was unwilling to broach any subjects that could _ruin_ a delicate balance, so he didn’t.) The X-Factor tour continues on its merry way, with more and more girls snowballing their way into the band’s entourage, wanting and waiting while Louis plays the part of a dutiful boyfriend, uninterested, unattainable. 

Harry makes out with a few girls at various after parties, drunk and _wrong_ feeling because he hates using people, he hates kissing if he doesn’t mean it, and he _knows_ the only reason he’s doing this is to show Louis that he doesn’t have any _expectations_. 

But then it happens again at one of these parties, after they perform in Aberdeen. Louis is drunk, loud, raucous, and laughing as much as he’s making everyone else laugh. It’s an _official_ party, so Harry can’t legally drink; instead, he’s sipping Ribena from a straw and watching the “Everyone Loves Louis Tomlinson” show, the semicircle of charmed, grinning people all looking up at him with bright and adoring eyes. 

Harry is forced to consider the possibility that he is just one of many people, all pining, all bending their stems to grow toward the sun. He feels sorry for himself for awhile until Louis capers up to him at some point during the party, pulling him to his feet, hanging from his neck warm and heavy and smelling like vodka. “Harry,” he all but yells in his ear, “there’s something I need to show you, and it’s in our dressing room. Will you kindly accompany me?”

Harry doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he’ll follow him anywhere, so. They sneak out of the banquet room at the convention center they just played, down the echoey hallway and across the stadium to slip backstage, Louis singing Rihanna too loud and Harry trying in vain to cover his mouth for him so they won’t get caught. 

He opens the door to their dressing room (which still smells electric with post-show sweat, even hours later), and just as Harry flicks on the lights, Louis is all over him. 

He shoves him up against the wall between two racks of clothes, nearly upending them both in the process, and Harry, who is so, so stunned and overwhelmed that this is happening again, just _lets it_ , allowing the tide of Louis’s want to crash over his head. He lets himself be smacked between hangers of Louis’s clothes, a mess of stripes and braces, and he thinks distantly that he would let Louis tie him up with those, he _wants_ him to. He’ll let him do anything.

Louis mouths all over his throat, teeth razing his jaw, hands untucking his shirt so he can palm over skin, and Harry doesn’t even _think_ about it when he hooks his thumbs under Louis’s chin and tilts him up to kiss. 

Louis makes a face at him, flat lips and a single brow raised as he claps one of his hands down over Harry’s panting, parted lips. “Don’t do that,” he slurs. “Kissing is for _lovers_ , not drunk, bored fucks with your best mate.” 

So, that’s it, then. The bubble of elation deflates in Harry’s chest, leaving him faintly sick and totally empty as he realizes that anything it _could_ have been, any version of it he imagined where Louis loved him back with the same crazy, young love that he was forever drunk on, wasn’t going to happen. No fantasy-become-reality, any hope for reciprocity ending right here between their rutting hips, under rough, burning hands. 

Louis digs his nails into Harry’s back, dragging them down from his shoulder blades to his ass in one long, deliberate path, and it stings so fucking good that Harry decides he can live with this, with only having a fraction of what he wants. It’s kind of a beautiful, tragic story, the unrequited love thing, and he’s a sucker for beauty, for tragedy. He’ll take what Louis gives him, and right now, he’s giving him his cock, unzipping his pants, and pulling himself free, and Harry wants it so badly he can’t think of anything else, of dignity or self-preservation. 

He has this, at least, Louis’s nails scratching his back up just right and shoving a hand into his khakis so he can grip a fistful of his ass, drawing him closer, chewing on his shoulder, grinding his cock into thigh, red and throbbing and beautiful, and maybe that’s enough. Any part of Louis Tomlinson is better than no part at all because just being close to him feels magic. Like sunshine, like staying up late, and Harry will take it, he’ll take anything. 

He sinks to his knees, determined to get Louis off this time. He holds onto his sagging belt with one hand and takes his cock in the other, pulling the foreskin down to expose the red, bubbling tip before flicking his tongue over it. 

“Fuck, Harry,” Louis swears, making a fist in his hair. It feels really good, the tugging pressure at the roots, so Harry pulls away from it, creating tension as he sucks Louis into his mouth, sliding down far enough that he gags, drools. Louis curses again, pulling him back up by his hair. 

It’s a lot, so much, _too_ much. Louis tastes too good and too real, and his cock isn’t long, but it’s _thick_ , enough to split Harry’s lips a little at the corners as he really pushes himself down onto it, tongue swirling messily at the base. He lets go of Louis’s jeans to unbuckle his own, and there, kneeling on the floor of their shared dressing room amid a pile of their combined, sweat-soaked show clothes, Harry jerks himself off. 

Louis is quiet, for once. All bitten lips and knit brows and grit teeth, his cheeks so terribly flushed as he holds Harry steady by his hair and fucks his mouth, hips graceless and stuttering. 

They both come fast, Louis biting his arm and pushing Harry down so he chokes, Harry so soon after, with a low, broken groan, ripped over the thickness of Louis’s still twitching cock. 

When it’s over, Louis stands upright and tucks himself back into his jeans before flopping down onto the ugly leather couch in the dressing room, hair a wreck and two spots of color on his cheeks as he yelps out a hoarse, “Whooo! Harry!”

His arm is thrown over his eyes, so Harry can’t read them, but he can tell by his mouth that he’s smiling that familiar grin. Lopsided, promising to bite. “What?” he asks, voice scraping as he kneels on the floor over his puddle of come, too shaky to stand, still overcome by the terror of loving Louis, paralyzed by how _big_ it is, how _inconvenient_. 

“You’re really quite good at that, aren’t you?” Louis says then, voice fond, mouth still smiling from beneath hidden eyes. 

It’s probably a compliment, but Harry’s chest won’t stop aching. 

3\. 

The third time it happens, Harry is _tired_. 

Tired of living the beautiful tragedy of being unrequitedly in love with his best mate. Unrequitedly loving Louis _hurts_ , and there’s nothing romantic about it, nothing lovely or poetic about the desperate sting of wanting Louis so bad all the time, wanting his sunshine and his magic, yes, but also wanting his morning breath and his stupidly small hand in his own and his chest pressed to his spine every morning in every hotel room from now until the end of the world. 

He’s just really, really tired. 

And maybe it’s because the tour is over, and now they’re _living_ together in London like _boyfriends_ except they’re _not_ (even though they should be, could be, Harry thinks). It’s just, it’s really weird. 

Harry does Louis’s laundry every Sunday, totally ashamed of himself for smelling his shirts before he throws them in the washer but doing it anyway, blushing as he finds his pants rolled up inside his jeans, separating them, dabbing stain remover on the grass marks on his football joggers. Sometimes they go shopping together for sugar and milk and bread, and each morning, Harry makes tea and eggs so that when Louis finally drags himself out of bed sometime after 11, they can have breakfast together while Louis checks football stats online and chatters to Harry about it like Harry actually cares (and he does, kind of, because he wants to hear every single thing Louis has to say).

It’s just so _domestic_. So easy and comfortable, and it’s nearly _impossible_ for Harry to not want more. 

They’re well on their way to being proper popstars now, so there are parties and press events some nights, but when there aren’t, they stay home together more often than they go out, legs tangled up in Harry’s bed while they marathon shows together, and it feels perfect, _too perfect_ , so naturally, Harry’s going crazy. 

Because it’s unfair, really. And he’s tired. 

They’re currently in the middle of the second series of Skins, and Louis is clearly bored and not paying attention, alternating between checking his phone and pitching popcorn at the TV screen whenever a character opens their mouth for any prolonged period of time. 

It’s pretty funny, so Harry just kind of lies there chuckling, missing all the dialogue because Louis keeps _shouting_. “God, you missed again, Cassie! And it was a perfect shot, too,” he yelps, chucking another handful of popcorn across the room. “Try harder.” 

It’s all over Harry’s _bed_ , so he finally shoves Louis with his shoulder, fond and exasperated and tired, tired, tired. “Are you gonna pick that all up? Because _I’m_ not eating it.”

Louis looks scandalized by the potential of having to pick up after himself. “It’s nights like this when I wish we had a dog, so I could just call it in here, and it could suck it all up like a little vacuum,” he announces, flopping back against Harry’s pillows. “I’m bored, let’s do something.” 

“Sure, just lemme get this,” Harry sighs dramatically, heaving himself out of the nest of covers and onto all fours, dragging the popcorn bowl out of Louis’s lap so he can clean up. Louis sees what he’s doing and makes a face, grabbing him by the wrist and hauling him back into bed beside him. “Don’t! You don’t have to do _everything_ , I was just _complaining_ , but I will pick it up. Really, I will. Stop.” 

And his eyes are so pleading and blue, his hair sticking up in the back because he never bothered to brush it today or change out of the shirt he slept in (faded red with the Doncaster fire department crest on the breast pocket, too tight so it rides a good inch above his low-slung joggers, and Harry has been resentfully staring all day). Harry blinks at him, then collapses onto his stomach, suddenly too tired to even move. 

It’s pathetic and foolish, but he wants _so badly_ to lie in bed with Louis all day and pick up his messes, he wants that almost as much as he wants to climb into his lap and kiss him breathless. It’s a debilitatingly exhausting thing to know about himself, so much so that he just lolls around there amid the popcorn, eyes shut, limp in front of Louis’s crossed legs.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asks him, voice uncharacteristically clipped. 

“I dunno,” Harry says, even though he knows very well. And before he can think better of it, he inhales deeply, and says, “M’just really lonely.” 

Louis waits a beat, then two, before tentatively smoothing a hand up onto Harry’s thigh, and suddenly, Harry’s heart is pounding in his throat. He didn’t expect this, not at all, and he thought if the opportunity arose again he might have worked up enough self-preservation to resist it, or at least _say something_ , but he can’t. He’s dry-mouthed, silent, trembling. 

“What do you mean?” Louis asks tentatively. 

Harry risks opening his eyes, and the second he does, Louis cracks. 

He’s grabbing Harry by his shirt, making a fist in the fabric and pulling him close enough to get his mouth on him, one firm, deliberate bite right into the curve of Harry’s shoulder. It hurts, but Harry’s figuring out he really likes it, so he pushes instinctively up into the pain, into the hard line of Louis’s teeth as he reaches for him, hands in his messy, hair, palming down his too-tight tee-shirt. 

They grapple on the bed for a minute, all labored breaths and clumsy, stilted bucks of their hips, grinding popcorn to oily dust on Harry’s duvet, and he should care, he should, but he just _doesn’t_. Louis is real, sober and solid, as he spreads Harry out under him, getting a hand between their rutting bodies so he can rub his palm over his thighs, then over the heat building between them. “Fuck,” he mumbles, mouth open on the side of Harry’s face, and it’s so _close_ , this is all so close, and Harry can’t help it, he might be a masochist, so he turns his head, trying to catch Louis’s lips with his own. 

Louis pulls away but doesn’t say anything. He just holds Harry down, one hand making a fist in his hair, the other tugging his joggers over his growing erection so he can see, so he can touch skin. “Fuck,” he mumbles again, making a fist around Harry’s cock and jerking it to its full length, eyes fixed on the steady movement. 

Knowing Louis is _looking_ at him like that, mouth parted and wet and eager, is enough to make Harry twitch, precum beading at the tip and pulsing out onto his stomach as Louis touches him. “God, you get so wet,” Louis mumbles, and Harry is _gone_ , gone gone, so far past that imagined self--preservation, so far past whatever he was planning to say. 

He groans low and rasping as Louis licks the precum off his stomach, tongue swirling over his skin before biting down, leaving marks. 

And then everything becomes about _that_. Louis keeps jacking him off, sure, but lazily, noncommittally. Just enough to get him to pulse and twitch and drip so he can smear that up his belly and lick it up, before biting a deliberate trail from his navel to his sternum, getting whatever flesh he can between his teeth and biting, sucking. It hurts a lot, Harry’s skin is drawn tight over bone and muscle, and he’s oversensitive to the point of near tears, but Louis keeps doing it, slow and serious and methodical like Harry has never seen him before. 

It’s a lot. So much, _too_ much, and Harry doesn’t know what to do with it, really, with the searing intensity of Louis when he’s _sober_ , biting a map of marks into his stomach and chest like it’s what he was meant to do, what sex _is_ , first and foremost. He keeps pulling back and admiring his work, humming in the back of his throat while he fists along Harry’s length, grinding his own hard cock into Harry’s thigh, his hip. “You look really good like this,” he might say at one point, it’s hard to know because Harry can’t do or hear or say anything; his blood is pounding too hard in his ears, and the whole of this is too good, too overwhelming. 

Louis makes him come onto his stomach, eventually, jacking him off, with his eyes half-lidded and hazy and all pupil fixed to the shuddering ladder of his abdominals as he paints them in white. “God, Harry,” he might mumble before licking the mess up, still slow and serious and methodical as his tongue sweeps over Harry’s marked skin, hot and wet and stinging. 

Harry blinks up at the ceiling through a sheen of overwhelmed tears, trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do, how he’s supposed to feel about Louis Tomlinson eating his come off his belly.

“Can I come on you?” Louis asks then, snapping him out of his haze. His voice is reedy and high and desperate, and it tugs at Harry’s guts, makes his stomach flip over, and Harry almost _hates_ him for being so _fucking hot_ that it ruins his better judgement. 

“Yeah,” he rasps. Then, on accident, “Wherever you want. On my face, if you want.” 

“ _Jesus_ ,” Louis wheezes, sitting up and straddling Harry’s lap, joggers pulled down around his knees and cock out and leaking in his hand, so thick and hard and hot that Harry’s mouth waters as he remembers the way it tastes. “That sounds really good,” Louis says, panting. “But I kind of want to...yeah, here, where you did,” he breathes it out in a messy huff, tugging on his cock as he bears down over Harry, over his soft stomach still damp with spit, dappled in red and purple bite marks. 

It happens fast. Harry wants to cry as Louis spills over his own fists with a strangled sob, the hot gush landing on his chest in burning ribbons, so good, all he’s ever wanted (they could be, they _should be_ , Harry thinks).

Then, because Louis is perfect and there are at least two million reasons why Harry is in love with him, Louis peels off his Doncaster fire shirt and uses it to wipe his come off Harry, grinning down at him through the wreck of his hair. “See, I clean up after myself.” 

Harry’s breath shudders into him, his lungs stinging with it. “You’re awful,” he mumbles, meaning it. “And what about the popcorn?” 

Louis hums, rolling off of Harry to lie beside him, shirtless and flushed and entirely too beautiful to stand. “I’ll get it,” he says, waving a hand through the air. “Just gimme a minute.” 

A minute passes, maybe two, and Harry chews the inside of his cheek, head turned so he can peer at Louis, his features smooth and soft and unconcerned, like they _didn’t_ just fuck sober, in Harry’s own _bed_ for the first time. Or maybe like they did, but it doesn’t _mean_ anything to him. 

Harry tries to remind himself that it _doesn’t_ , that this is only happening because Louis can’t really get off anywhere else without it causing potential problems for the whole band, that this is only the product of his own willingness and convenience. It’s a hard thing to remind himself, when his skin is feeling so bruised, when he’s _covered_ in Louis’s marks, which he’s going to have to live with for the next week, at least. He trails his hands over one on his right pectoral, peering at it, wishing he didn’t _love_ it so much. “Hey, Lou?” he makes himself ask, heart pounding. 

“Hmm?” 

“Why haven’t you let me kiss you?” he asks, trying to keep his voice blank, unassuming. 

Louis is already laying very still, but he stills even further, fingers stopping their idle drumming against his own sternum. “Because,” he says, tone totally conversational, eyes shut so Harry does not know how blue they are in this moment or how full of black. “I’m not stupid,” he answers then. 

Harry waits for more clarification, but it never comes. Instead, he fights the paralyzing wave of exhaustion that's settled over him and gets up to leave his own room. 

4\. 

 

The fourth time happens in the toilets at the recording studio, only three days later.

They’re all sitting around the break room, drinking water and laughing about nothing. Zayn’s grumpy and hungover but smiling at Louis in spite of himself, because Louis is infectious, it’s impossible _not_ to. Harry is certainly smiling, even though his heart feels broken, even though his eyes are puffy and stinging because he’s been crying in the shower a lot.

He keeps trying to eat (they have a spectacular array of snacks in the studio), but he’s just not hungry; he hasn’t been for days. Instead he opens bags of crisps and picks at them idly, giving the rest to Niall, who is more than happy to annihilate whatever Harry doesn’t want.

Liam is telling everyone about some new girl he’s supposedly in love with, and Louis is predictably giving him a hard time about it. “Oh,” Louis says, eyebrows waggling, teeth showing through his sly smile. “She’s blonde? With blue eyes? Tall? Perfect? Are you _sure_ it’s a different girl, Liam, because quite honestly, she sounds like a carbon copy of the last _three_ you were in love with, I want photo evidence you can actually tell the difference between all the tall, perfect blondes in the world, because I’m not convinced.” 

“Shut up,” Liam snaps, pitching a wadded up tissue in Louis’s direction and missing. “You don’t get a say in this because you’re gay.” 

Louis throws his arms up in the air, cackling. “Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I can’t tell the difference between girls! That’s homophobic, Payno, Harry’n’I aren’t friends with you anymore.” 

Harry’s stomach plummets, because he’s not entirely comfortable with the casual, easy way Louis groups them together. It feels dismissive, really, to be _HarrynLouis_ who both like boys, instead of everything _else_ they are together, everything else they share. _HarrynLouis_ who live together, _HarrynLouis_ who are best friends, attached at the hip, who have fucked twice drunk and once sober. His hand moves reflexively to his stomach, thumbing over the tender bruises all over his torso, some fading but some still so dark, the unforgettable shape of Louis’s mouth over and over again, covering him. 

He frowns, and Louis definitely notices. “What, don’t want to be on my team anymore?” He flattens his lips out and nudges Harry’s foot under the table, and pretty much everything hurts because _no_ , that’s not fair. None of this is fair. 

“She’s probably really wonderful, Liam,” Harry chooses to say instead of answering, decidedly ignoring Louis, who _hates_ to be ignored, especially by Harry. Harry can feel him bristle beside him, a prickling heat leaving his body, crackling in the air around them. 

“She _is_ , thank you, _Harry_ ,” Liam says, shooting a disgruntled look in Louis’s direction. “She’s perfect, really, maybe _the one _, if I’m honest with myself,” he adds, and there ends Harry’s brief surge of sympathy for Liam Payne.__

__Niall and Zayn both crack up, and Louis rolls his eyes, sinking lower into his chair. Harry _could_ stay silent, he _could_ keep his own heartbreak from seeping into this nonsense with Liam, but he’s _tired_. His eyes sting and the constellation of bruises on his torso aches so good and he has no appetite and he’s so, so _tired_ , so it’s not really his fault when he replies with a skeptical “... _really_? The one?” His eyes are narrowed at Liam, and everyone looks at him, because so, so rarely does he lash out with anything other than totally playful sarcasm. _ _

__“Yes, really,” Liam cuts back, narrowing his eyes._ _

__“Hmph,” Harry grumbles, drawing his feet up onto his chair so his knees are bent in front of him and he can wrap his arms around them, making himself into a defensive ball, getting his limbs out from under the table because he’s sick of Louis kicking him. “S’just. You’re really young. We’re all really young. Don’t get _too_ hung up.” _ _

__Louis laughs a harsh, humorless bark of a laugh. “Don’t listen to Harold,” he tells Liam, reaching across the table to squeeze his arm, suddenly on his side now that they’re in opposition to Harry. “I don’t think people like Harry fall in love like you and I do.”_ _

__And Harry snaps out of his moping self-pity because _what_? He stares at Louis, eyes wide with hurt as Louis adds, “The whole perpetual butterflies, heart-aching type of love that ruins your life? I don’t think Harry _feels_ that. Because he’s Harry Styles, he loves the whole world, and the whole world loves him back. It’s all very lovely. But you and I, Liam, we get to _suffer_ and all.” _ _

__Niall, as usual, laughs inappropriately, dispelling the tension drawn tight at the table, dissolving everyone but Harry into messy guffaws because it’s kind of a running joke, Harry’s popularity, his teen-heartthrob reputation. Harry doesn’t remember how to laugh, though; his stomach is in knots and he hasn’t eaten all day and Louis’s eyes are so _hard_ right now, the glassy cruel blue of a storm-sick sea, and Harry can’t do this, not today, not with these marks all over his chest. _ _

__He gets up and leaves, mumbling about the toilet._ _

__Louis follows him._ _

__“Wait, Hazza,” he calls, jogging down the hallway to catch up, Toms squeaking on the tile floor once he rounds the corner and bursts in after Harry. He reaches for Harry’s arm just as Harry pulls away, sidestepping into a stall._ _

__Louis is too quick and too determined, though, so before Harry can lock the door, he’s shouldering his way in after him, eyes bright and regretful, cheeks pink. “I’m _sorry_ , that was really mean, I didn’t--”_ _

__Harry shoves him hard into the wall, and he means to mean it, but then he doesn’t let go. He’s confused again, eyes stinging fiercely, and he’s pulling Louis into him as much as he’s pushing him away, thumbs digging hard into Louis’s shoulders, into the hollow below his clavicles, hard enough to bruise. _What do you want from me?_ he thinks desperately, throat thick with tears. _What do you want?__ _

__Louis slams him back against the adjacent wall, hands tight on his biceps, teeth as his pulse. “M’sorry,” he says, all hot sweet breath against Harry’s ear. “I didn’t mean--”_ _

__Harry does not want to hear what Louis didn’t mean. He’s hard in his joggers, _always_ hard every time Louis touches him, and it’s fucking _hopeless_ , so he puts his fingers in Louis’s mouth, choking him silent so he doesn’t have to listen to his apologies, whatever else. Louis’s lips are soft and a little chapped, and he opens them right away, eyes getting dark and half-lidded, one hand leaving Harry’s arm so it can slide down to his wrist, encircling it and holding him steady enough so he can suck his fingers. _ _

__Those hollowed cheeks, the wettest tongue, and Harry watches with his heart in his throat for a few lust-numb seconds before grabbing Louis and spinning him around so he’s facing the wall, pushed up against it all ruined and clumsy. He sucks Louis’s spit off his fingers, since maybe that’s as close as they’ll ever get to kissing. Then he tugs Louis’s joggers down around his ass, not exactly sure what he’s doing, what his plan it, just _wanting_ so badly he can’t breathe, can’t think. _ _

__“Oh, God,” Louis chokes out, arching his back and pushing himself up against Harry’s hips, all willing and supple and terrible._ _

__Harry has never actually fucked a boy before, and although that’s something he would very much _like_ to do to Louis in a universe where they’re something more than what they actually are, it’s not something he can do now, here, in the toilets at the recording studio where anyone could walk in and get them in trouble. He settles for rubbing his spit-wet fingers up Louis’s crack, thumbing breathlessly over his hole, shaking and stunned by the softness, the searing heat, all these parts of Louis he’s never touched before but _wants_ with such gut-wrenching purity. _ _

__He frees his erection and thrusts messily against Louis, his cock lining up so perfectly between his cheeks, so dark and red and obscene against the soft pale of Louis’s skin. Harry fucks against him there, until Louis’s crack is slick and sticky with precum, the hottest thing he’s ever felt, Louis’s hole clenching and fluttering against his shaft as he slides past it. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, _Harry_ ,” Louis keens rhythmically, voice reduced to nothing but a high, breathy whine as he jacks himself off with one hand, the other braced white-knuckled against the wall. “So’fucking _good_ ,” he mumbles, and Harry bites the back of his neck, sucking and kissing him here, at least, the faintest hint of salt under his tongue. _ _

__He’s holding Louis’s little hips steady with one hand, the other wrapped firmly around his chest and he can _feel_ Louis’s frantic heartbeat thudding against his forearm, like he’s holding that heart, holding him in. It’s too much; it _hurts_ , so he braces his arm against the wall instead. It doesn’t even _matter_ though because Louis just turns his head and mouths wetly all over his forearm, teeth scraping his pulse before his tongue soothes the sting. Louis is so _mouthy_ , always biting and sucking and chewing and marking, and Harry can’t handle it, he doesn’t know how to _do this type of thing_ without letting those marks get _under_ his skin, too. _ _

__The head of Harry’s cock nudges against Louis’s rim, hot and fucking _filthy_ , and just like that, Harry comes, a strangled sound crushed against the back of Louis’s neck as he empties himself in messy, loose snaps of his hips. _ _

__“Oh, God,” Louis murmurs, letting himself be pushed and fucked up against the wall, biting down _hard_ on Harry’s forearm as he finishes, too. _ _

__Harry lets go of Louis’s hip so he can feel his cock as he comes, their fingers sliding together in a sticky, too-hot mess along Louis’s pulsing shaft. _Everything_ is too hot; Harry can’t breathe, he doesn’t know what’s happening. All he knows is that the whole of his body is trembling, save for the bite on his arm, which is throbbing so hard it hurts. _ _

__His eyes fall on the new mark, already raised, a swelling inside neat circle of indentations left by Louis’s teeth. “S’gonna bruise,” he mumbles, a wreck of hunger and confusion and longing, his voice shaking with it._ _

__“Sorry,” Louis says. He doesn’t sound sorry. He sounds too dazed for any emotion at all, still bent in half against the wall lazily stroking his shrinking cock, fist dripping, forehead mashed up against his own arm. “I didn’t mean--”_ _

__“Stop saying that, please,” Harry tells him, sniffling as he sits down on the edge of the toilet._ _

__Louis slowly composes himself, collecting a handful of tissue so that he can clean Harry’s come up, and really, no one should look so hot wiping their ass. Harry stares, chewing on the inside of his lip, wondering if this will become easier before he figures out he shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place. His chest hurts when he inhales, breath rattling, and before he can think of anything to say, Louis reaches for him and gently pats his head with one of his tiny, unwashed hands. Harry’s eyes burn with how much he loves him._ _

__“You’re not, like...ashamed of doing this with me, right?” Louis asks in a quiet voice._ _

__Harry snaps up, narrowing his eyes so he can peer at Louis through his hair. “What?” he asks, because _yeah_ , he is ashamed on some level. Ashamed he hasn’t told Louis that the supposedly casual and meaningless sex they’re having isn’t so casual and meaningless at all, not for him. Ashamed that he keeps _doing_ this, even though it fucking _hurts_ him. Ashamed that he he can’t even bring himself to regret it in any real, concrete way. _ _

__Louis shrugs, hand sliding from Harry’s head and falling limply at his side. “Ashamed of, like...I dunno,” he blushes, and Harry wishes so badly he could stand up and kiss the rising color, thumb along the perfect cut of Louis’s cheekbone. “The gay thing.”_ _

__Harry stares, then coughs. “Erm, no. Not at all.”_ _

__Louis smiles a faint smile, and he looks relieved. “Okay, good. I just thought...I dunno. You were weird when I joked about Liam being homophobic, and I just worried...”_ _

__He trails off, and Harry shakes his head sharply. “No, no, no. I’m not ashamed of that at all, wasn’t that,” he explains, hiding his face in his hands because he’s thinking, _it’s because I’m in love with you. Everything I do that’s weird or awkward or doesn’t make sense to you is all because I’m so, so in love with you. One day, you’ll figure it out, and everything will be ruined.__ _

__“Okay,” Louis says, buckling his jeans before sinking to the floor of the stall._ _

__They sit there for a moment, catching their breath, smoothing their hair, trying to look like they weren’t just fucking in the toilets during a mid-recording break. Eventually, because it’s too quiet to stand and because Harry really _is_ a masochist, he asks in a small voice, “Who have you loved like that?” _ _

__“What?” Louis says, voice just as small, perhaps even smaller, more guarded, more cautious. The voice of someone who doesn’t want to use the word love, probably, especially not after he let his best friend come grinding against his ass._ _

__Harry swallows thickly and repeats, “Who have you loved like that? When you were talking about love, with Liam.”_ _

__“Oh,” Louis breathes after a while, hanging his head between his knees, looking at the floor. “No one,” he adds, shrugging. “I was just imagining what it would be like.”_ _

__Harry nods, stomach churning. _You’re wrong about me, Lou, about love_ , he thinks. _I get butterflies every time I look at you. My heart is always aching. And you definitely ruined my life._ He imagines telling Louis some version of this truth, saying , _I_ do _fall in love like that, actually.__ _

__But then he might ask who with, and Harry has never been very good at lying._ _

__5._ _

__

__The fifth time it happens, they’re having a party at their apartment, and everything changes._ _

__Zayn has invited tons of girls, some of them in their twenties and much prettier than Harry is comfortable with, supermodel types, all laughing like broken glass and popping champagne bottles in their kitchen, and Harry’s going to have to _clean that up tomorrow_. At some point, they start doing body shots off of Zayn, a lime quarter in his mouth and margarita salt on his neck, and Harry has to leave because the whole thing is making his guts twist up into a intolerable mess of half-drunken disgust and arousal. _ _

__He stumbles out into the living room to look for Louis, but he can’t find him anywhere. There are too many people, all of them milling together and pushing the coffee table to the wall in order to make a dance floor, the whole flat smelling sharp and chemical with perfume and alcohol and sweat. Harry usually _loves_ big parties; he loves making new friends and talking to strangers and feeling totally surrounded, his house full of interesting things. He loves to drink until he can’t stand, he loves to do karaoke, he loves to dance. _ _

__But with a sick lurch to his stomach, he realizes that lately, he only loves doing these things if he’s doing them _with_ Louis. If Louis isn’t right by his side, then he’s too acutely aware of the vacancy, his heart always _searching_ , and that’s a terrible way to feel about your best mate who clearly doesn’t feel the same way about you. _ _

__Harry sinks onto one of his couches, beside two girls he’s never met before, and within an hour, he’s splayed out over one of their laps, making out with a third girl (one who’s short and compact and solid and chestnut-haired and blue-eyed, _sue him_ , he’s drunk and sad and his heart is always searching). _ _

__At some point, Louis finds him. Deposits himself in between the girls before he decidedly pries Harry off the one he’s kissing, fingers biting into his shoulders, sharp, boozy breath against his ear as he asks, “Who’s this?”_ _

__Her name is Cynthia, she says, or maybe Samantha. It’s very hard to hear over the din of laughter and music, and the thud of the bass is making Harry’s head ache. Plus, _Louis_ is here, Louis wearing one of _Harry’s_ scoop-neck white tee-shirts, so fucking big on him it’s sliding off his shoulder, revealing the dip of one of his collarbones, and really, really, Harry cannot be blamed for not knowing her name. His head lolls back onto Louis’s bare shoulder, and as Louis hauls him up onto his feet, he asks Cynthia/Samantha, “Mind if I borrow this lad for a moment?” She looks disappointed, but she’s not going to start a fight with one member of One Direction over another, so she lets him go. _ _

__Harry lets himself be led by his wrist like a dog on a leash, down the stairs and into Louis’s bedroom, which is blessedly empty and _quiet_. Louis pulls him inside and locks the door behind him, before pushing Harry toward his bed with a hand on either of his shoulders._ _

__Harry stumbles, then flops, bouncing on the mattress. “You’re wearing my shirt,” he slurs after he lands, not even trying to sound anything less than dismayed. He points an accusatory finger in Louis’s direction, brow furrowed. “S’not fair.”_ _

__Louis crosses his arms, “You’re drunk.”_ _

__“ _You’re_ drunk!” Harry fires back, because Louis _is_ , he’s so drunk, his cheeks are red and his hair is fucked up and he _spilled_ something on _Harry’s shirt_ ; he can see the lime-green splatter of energy drink staining the hem. _ _

__“Yeah, but I’m not making out with random sleazy girls on _our_ couch,” Louis snaps, stumbling over toward the bed, and Harry just _stares_ at him, thinking, _What_? _ _

__“You don’t even like girls,” he reminds Louis._ _

__Louis straddles him, combing his fingers through his hair and making a fist and _pulling_. Harry whimpers, tilting into his touch, arching his hips up off the bed to push against the solidity of Louis’s lap, not very good at resisting this sober, let alone drunk. _ _

__“What I don’t like,” Louis says, voice a harsh but vulnerable thing, “is other people getting to touch you.”_ _

___What_? Harry thinks helplessly. _ _

__Louis trails his fingers down Harry’s throat, tugging at the collar of his shirt, and _fuck_ , it shouldn’t feel so good, Louis acting possessive when he has _no right_ to shouldn’t make his heart pound like that, shouldn’t make the blood rush straight to his cock. Harry pouts, pushing his lower lip out and _frowning_ at Louis, Louis and his hazy blue eyes, so raw and searching and sad tonight. “That’s not fair,” Harry whispers. _You don’t get to choose which parts of me you want. You don’t get to refuse to kiss me then get mad when I kiss someone else_. His mind is a mess, thoughts all broken open and bleeding and disorganized, racing too hard to hold onto, to catch. _ _

__“I know,” Louis says. “It’s not fair to you at all. S’just true.”_ _

__He’s grinding into Harry’s lap now, small, measured bucks of his hips making their half-hard cocks grind together. Sparks of heat and friction so nervy that Harry’s already panting, palms spread over Louis’s thighs, head lolling against the mattress, and he’s so _done_ with this, so done with only having little bits and pieces of Louis when he _should_ have everything. _ _

__“Lou,” he says in a ripped voice, back arching as Louis bends over him, kneeing open his thighs so they can grind closer, hotter. “Will you just, like, _tell me_ what you want?” _ _

__Louis smiles a stupid, fleeting, hard-to-read smile, and Harry wants to bite it so hard, but he can’t lift his head off the mattress; he doesn’t know how, everything is so _heavy_. “Just. Something you can’t give me, alright? So don’t worry about it. It’s okay,” he answers after a minute, bending to kiss all over Harry’s neck, nuzzling against his ear, breathing from his hair as he grinds him into his mattress so solidly, slowly and deliberately and maddeningly _good_._ _

__And Harry knows he’s right. He can’t give Louis the ideal setup; he can’t be the perfect, ever-convenient best mate who’s there to fuck, no strings attached, never catching feelings, never getting in too deep. He can’t do that. It’s way, way too late, and he loves him way, way too much._ _

__“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, inhaling raggedly, one of his legs kicking uselessly in the air until it hooks around Louis’s hips and draws him tighter. “M’really, really sorry about all of it,” he blurts, even though Louis might not even know what he’s _talking_ about. _ _

__Louis tugs him where he wants him by his hair, right under him until his face is so _fucking_ close, breath huffing out over Harry’s lips as he says, “Don’t be, it’s okay.” _ _

__And it’s not, it’s not. _None_ of this is okay, Harry is entirely too drunk to deal with Louis’s eyes flashing a centimeter away, overflowing with pupil as his breath catches. He’s too drunk to deal with the way it feels to be in Louis’s _bed_ , under Louis’s _weight_ , thighs open to accommodate the slow, perfect drags of their hips together, their noses and brows bumping they’re so, so close and _fuck_ \--_ _

__Harry links his hands behind Louis’s neck and kisses him, opened mouth and filthy and burning and wet because he didn’t wait this long for it to be _gentle_. Louis groans, stills, but doesn’t pull away, and Harry figures that’s as much of a go-ahead as he’s ever going to get. _ _

__He fucks Louis’s lips open with his tongue, flicking over his teeth, the roof of his mouth, desperate and thirsty and graceless and _finally_ , finally, Louis kisses him back. Bites him (of course), holds him down, grips his chin tight, and kisses him and kisses him until Harry sees stars. _ _

__His vision comes back in a static haze as Louis lets him go, gasping, both of them sucking in hungry lungfuls of air before Louis is all over him again, spreading out over his body and holding his face steady between his spread palms._ _

__And kissing has never, ever felt like this. It’s like _sex_ , it’s like coming over and over again, wet and dirty and and sharp with teeth, their breath an endless, ruined cascade as they roll around on Louis’s bed, drowning in each other. _Don’t stop, don’t stop_ , Harry thinks over and over again, needing this to go on as long as possible in case it’s the last time, in case he never gets to taste Louis again, his sloppy wet mouth bitter with alcohol and sweet with some energy drink, in case he never gets to see his lips so perfect and pink and swollen like this. _ _

__“Fuck,” Louis mumbles more than once, their foreheads pressed flush and their lips ghosting together, slick and bitten. “Fuck, Harry,” he breathes, like this is too much, like he _knows_ he shouldn’t be kissing him, shouldn’t be taking this further. _ _

__But they _could_ , they _should_. “Please,” Harry pants, rubbing his palms up the planes of muscle in Louis’s back, thumbs digging into the divots between his ribs, pulling him close. “Don’t stop.” _ _

__“Okay,” Louis whispers, nipping at the corner of Harry’s mouth, teeth flashing and white and so hot, and Harry needs _more_ , he needs Louis’s full weight spread out over his chest, he needs to be crushed under him. He pulls him down until they're kissing again, Louis whimpering into his mouth, digging his thumbs into the marks he left earlier that week. _ _

__They kiss for a really long time. Harry is not sure exactly for how long, but he thinks it’s an inexcusably long time to be absent from one’s own party. He also thinks it’s an inexcusably long time to kiss someone he’s supposed to just be no-strings-attached fuck buddies with, an inexcusably long time to snog your best friend. If this is their only rule, they’re breaking it, over and over again._ _

__Louis kisses him so rough, so desperate and wet and thorough, that Harry’s lips are stinging and raw when he moves down to his neck, tilting him back with a fist in his hair so he can lick strips from his clavicles to the line of his jaw. “Can I?” Louis asks brokenly, grip tightening in Harry’s curls._ _

__“Yeah,” Harry says, before he realizes that Louis hasn’t actually said _what_. “Wait, can you what?” _ _

__“I really want to,” Louis slurs, thumbing over Harry’s lower lip, cursing when Harry’s tongue flicks out against the pad of it. “Really want to eat you out.”_ _

__“ _Fuck_ ,” Harry says, head falling back, only half-processing what Louis is saying, Louis with his insanely perfect mouth, his sharp and needy teeth. “I...wow.” _ _

__“Can I?” Louis says again._ _

__His voice is right in his ear, all breath and tongue, and Harry’s not even sure what he’s agreeing to when he answers, “Yes, yes, yes,” stomach a mess of knots and alcohol and fear and love and disbelief, thighs clenching together as Louis clambers out from between them. “Yes.”_ _

__“Roll over,” Louis tells him, pushing him onto his belly and nudging his thighs apart with a knee, hands shaking against Harry’s fevered skin as he tugs his pants down over his ass and into a heap on the floor. “God, Harry,” he hisses, rubbing circles into the small of Harry’s back before thumbing his ass apart, “You’re so fucking hot.”_ _

__Harry groans pitifully into Louis’s duvet, inhaling from it because it smells _just_ like Louis, his deodorant and his cologne and his sleep-sweat, stomach-twistingly good, _real_. He feels Louis settle between his spread legs, heart pounding and guts dissolving into a frantic mess of butterflies because he can’t even really _believe_ that this is happening, that Louis wants to, that Louis is gonna put his mouth _there_ , his lips and tongue so raw from kissing. He can feel his breath, though, hot and damp on his hole as Louis holds him apart and dips his tongue, a single, tentative lick over the flickering rim of muscle. _ _

__Harry lets out a muffled sob into Louis’s bed, hiding his flushed face in the crook of his arm._ _

__Louis is all teeth again, biting ungently at Harry’s thigh where it meets the curve of his ass, nipping up the smooth white curve of his cheek before he licks his hole again, this time wet and messy and hungry and, _oh_. _ _

__Harry jumps, grinding down against the mattress and bucking his hips reflexively up against Louis’s face, his labored breath, and his tongue, sloppy and drooling. Louis whines against him, licking and kissing and holding Harry open, stubble scraping against his thighs, and it’s the fucking _hottest_ and filthiest thing that Harry has ever felt in his entire life. He’s pretty sure he’s never going to be the _same_ after this; he’s never going to recover from Louis and his dirty mouth, his muffled groans. _ _

__At some point, Louis pulls back to thumb over his twitching hole, opening him a little with his knuckle before dipping back down and fucking the rim of muscle open with the tip of his tongue, not just licking Harry but licking _inside him_ , splitting him apart and it’s too much, too fucking much. _ _

__“M’gonna come, gonna, ah--” Harry rasps before it’s happening, before he spills between his own stomach and the mattress. He feels like he comes forever, jerking messily, smearing come all over Louis’s navy blue duvet as he alternates between rubbing his cock into the bed and pushing his ass back against Louis’s face._ _

__Finally, he collapses, boneless and too sensitive and face slick with tears, with drool. There’s a dark puddle of that on Louis’s bed, too, and Harry wonders how the fuck Louis is going to _sleep_ here ever again now that Harry is all over his duvet. _ _

__Louis places a single wet, open-mouthed kiss right on Harry’s hole before fumbling up the bed on his knees and elbows, face all wet, eyes bright and hazy all at once. He doesn’t ask before he rolls Harry onto his back and kisses him, tasting completely and totally like Harry’s ass, bitter and musky and earthy and dark as he licks the seam of Harry’s lips open, sucks on his swollen lower lip._ _

__Harry shudders, sinking his fingers into Louis’s sweat-damp hair, razing his nails against his scalp as he sucks on Louis’s tongue, stomach dropping with the heady knowledge that only moments ago it was sunk deep into his _ass_. It’s a lot, so much, _too_ much, and he feels like he might be coming apart, seconds away from a drunk, teary panic. “Lou,” he says breathlessly as they part, his heart pounding where it’s lodged up in his throat. “What’re we--what are we _doing_?” _ _

__And he half-expects Louis to remind him with the same cheerful flippancy as always, _Drunk, bored fucks with your best mate, right? Remember?_ But that’s not what he says. He rubs a palm over his face then holds it above him to examine, all shining spit and involuntary tremor, a dark, blurry shape against the glare of the overhead light. “I don’t know,” he says after a few beats, voice shaking. And then, as he stumbles to his feet and nearly tips over at the door, “I’m not drunk enough.” _ _

__And he leaves Harry there without even glancing over his shoulder, walking out the door wearing Harry’s shirt, Harry all over his face, all over his breath, all over his bed._ _

__Harry waits a long time, half-listening to the party above him, but Louis never comes back._ _

__

__6._ _

__After waking up hungover and tear-bleary and half-naked and _alone_ in Louis’s bed the next morning, Harry decides that there can’t be a sixth time it happens. _ _

__If he wants to survive living with Louis, survive being in a _band_ with him, this has to stop. He doesn’t want it to, but he can’t keep doing this and stay Louis’s _friend_ , uncomplicated and without resentment. There are too many butterflies, his chest hurts too much, his life is too ruined. _ _

__He heads upstairs in last night’s party clothes, dragging his feet and letting himself hiccup and sob pitifully and openly because he _knows_ Louis isn’t home so he can be as loud as he wants to, echoing in the empty flat. It’s Sunday, and without fail, no matter _how_ hungover Louis is, he will _always_ go play footie in the park with Niall on Sunday if Niall is in town. It’s one of the only things Harry can count on with any certainty, that and the sun will always rise and his heart will always search for Louis Tomlinson, in any crowded room, in any universe. _ _

__He spends a grossly long time in the shower, even though he doesn’t really want to wash Louis’s spit off. The water’s scalding hot as it cascades over his head, drumming against his back until the skin is tender and red and almost stings to touch. And there, amid thick billows of steam, he cries until he can’t cry anymore._ _

__He should forget the way Louis kissed him, but he won’t be able to. Furthermore, he doesn’t _want_ to. He wants to keep everything, every moment he’s ever shared with Louis tucked away and catalogued in his leather-bound notebook, preserved, because he’s a sucker for beauty and tragedy, he really is, he’s a sucker for pain. He knows it would be much easier to _move on_ and just be _friends_ with Louis if he didn’t want to _keep_ everything, even the parts that hurt, but that’s just the way he is. _ _

__Harry shuts off the water eventually, sniffling at his reflection after swiping his hand over the fogged-up mirror: irreparably red-rimmed eyes, nose and forehead puffy, blotchy. It’s not pretty at all, but there’s nothing he can do about it, so he just pulls on some pajamas and treads heavily back down to the filthy kitchen, hoping that he looks at least a little less bloodshot and pathetic by the time Louis comes back from footie._ _

__There, amid the empty bottles and sticky red cups and half-squeezed lime wedges littering the counter, Harry pours himself a bowl of cereal, and watches the cornflakes get soggy and come apart in the milk without actually eating any of them._ _

__When he hears Louis’s key click in the lock, his stomach plunges spectacularly, a whole avalanche of feeling surging in his too-tight chest where there was formerly nothing but a numb, dull ache. He didn’t _think_ he was the puking type of hungover, but now he’s not so sure._ _

__Louis stomps into the kitchen in his practice jersey and cleats, which he should have toed off at the door but didn’t. He subsequently tracks mud and grass into the kitchen, and Harry tries on the sensation of being irritated at him for it, but it just doesn’t _feel_ right, doesn’t feel authentic. And he _thought_ he couldn’t cry anymore, but maybe he was wrong. _ _

__“Smells like champagne piss in here,” Louis announces, wrinkling his nose._ _

__Harry risks looking at him. He’s flushed from the cold outside, little licks of his hair crusted against his temples with dried sweat, and Harry can definitely, definitely still cry. He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand and says before he loses his nerve, “Lou. I, erm. I can’t do this.”_ _

__Louis’s face falls, and he looks down immediately at his muddy cleats, mouth flickering out into a flat line. Harry is very worried for a moment that he’s going to say something terrible, _Do what, exactly?_ like he can’t remember last night or even make a _joke_ about it, but that’s not what happens at all. Louis sighs deeply, then drags a stool away from the counter, decidedly not looking at Harry as he sits down on the opposite side of the kitchen and says, “Right. Me either.” _ _

__Harry’s eyes are silently leaking, his voice all ripped to tatters of self-recrimination as he mumbles “God, I am _so sorry_ , Lou, I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to get so _weird_.” _ _

__Louis stays on his stool, which _hurts_ because usually when Harry is crying, even if it’s about something stupid like seeing a three-legged dog or remembering that there are homeless people in London, Louis usually hugs him about it. Wraps his arms around Harry’s shoulders and drags him so close, squeezing him up against his chest and telling him it’s okay, that dog can walk fine or they can talk to Simon about donating to some homeless charity or something. Instead, he just sits there, very still, arms wrapped around his chest protectively, head bent. _ _

__“Will you say something?” Harry begs. “I feel so stupid.”_ _

__Louis snaps his head up, and Harry’s breath catches because _he’s_ crying too. Eyes welled up, jaw set tight and trembling, lips wet from being worried between his teeth. “God, don’t feel stupid Harry, this isn’t _your_ fault,” he says miserably, rubbing his face with his hands, and Harry is a little floored because this isn’t going how he imagined it. “ _I’m_ the one who's sorry, I fucked this up so badly. And I shouldn’t have let it get in the way of being friends with you because being your friend is the most important thing--” just then Louis’s voice cracks, and he cuts himself off, hanging his head, wiping his nose. “M’just really sorry.” _ _

__Harry is confused. He wants to be close to Louis, crawl across the champagne-sticky floor on his hands and knees and lay his head in Louis’s lap and cry there, Louis’s fingers smoothing through his curls, kneading little circles into his neck. Everything he wants will only make things _worse_ , though, so he just feels stuck, wanting so much more from Louis Tomlinson than he can give. “So…,” he starts, inhaling raggedly. “What are we supposed to do?” _ _

__Louis sighs, then tilts his head back so he’s staring at the ceiling, red-faced and wet-eyed, and Harry _hates_ watching him cry from this distance, but he feels too _dirty_ to touch Louis, to bring all his excess and feeling along with him, stain his skin with it. “It’s, like, the _last_ thing I actually want,” Louis says unevenly. “But I should _probably_ move out. I can’t...being close like this is too hard.” _ _

__Harry wants to curl up on himself and die. _This is what it’s like to have your heart broken_ , he thinks very clearly to himself, flattening out a hand over his chest, over the wild, fractured thrum of pain inside. _I can actually feel it breaking_. It’s the last coherent thought he has before he dissolves into a mess of body-wracking sobs, flopping down onto the booze-sticky counter and just _wailing_ into his arms. _ _

__“Oh God, Harry,” Louis says, standing up and _finally_ coming over, tentatively touching Harry’s back, fingers dusting over his spine like he’s afraid to touch him, and _why wouldn’t he be_ , Harry is a puddle of love and pain and beauty and tragedy and other gross, unsavory things, and poor Louis just wanted a break from his career-imposed celibacy, and this is _all so unfair_. “Hey, it’s alright,” Louis says gently, brushing his knuckles prudently up between Harry’s quaking shoulder blades, “I won’t go anywhere if you don’t want me to, just thought it was _best_ , fuck, Harry,” he takes a deep, unsteady breath, “I really want to hug you right now, is that okay?” _ _

__“Yeah,” Harry mumbles before standing up, wobbling, and throwing his arms around Louis to bury his wet face into his neck. He know’s he’s too limp and too heavy by the way Louis staggers a little under his weight, but his legs aren’t working right. Nothing’s working right._ _

__Louis holds him tight, head turned so his lips are pressed into Harry’s hair where he murmurs quiet, unintelligible things. He smells so good, like wet grass and sweat and football and hangover and _Louis_ , Harry loves him too much to do anything but inhale from his shoulder, shuddering. “You don’t want me to move?” Louis asks eventually, voice a rumble against Harry’s temple._ _

__“ _No_ ,” Harry rasps, stomach coiling up, knotted and too hot. “Why would I want that? Do _you_ want that?” _ _

__Louis’s hands still on Harry’s shoulders, propping him up a little so he can look at him. The eye contact lasts all of one second before Louis’s gaze cuts away, color rising to his cheeks and something unreadable flashing in the black of his pupils. “I don’t want it at all,” he says, smiling a weak, watery smile. “I just thought you might want space from me. And then...I don’t know. It’s, like, so, so hard, to not do something stupid when we’re so close all the time, living together and all, I don’t even _trust_ myself, I’m just…,” he inhales, teeth in his lip, eyes downcast, and Harry doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but quite suddenly, his heart is thundering, blood pounding so, so loud in his ears. _ _

__“You’re what?” he asks cautiously. His mind is all static, stomach a mess of heat and confusion, and he can’t stop staring at Louis’s mouth, his soft chapped lips, raw at the corners from kissing so much last night, and he doesn’t know what’s happening anymore, what Louis is _talking_ about._ _

__Louis lets go of him, leaning against the counter and folding his arms nervously. “You know,” he says._ _

__And the thing is, Harry _doesn’t_ know. He’s feeling very _slow_ right now, mind dull and hungover, body exhausted and wrung out from crying and hardly sleeping and spending forty-five minutes getting pummeled by a hot shower and having a _broken heart_. “Know what?” _What don’t you trust yourself with? What stupid thing is it so hard not to do?_ He furrows his brow, so confused, so many unanswered questions all bumping into each other uselessly in his brain. _ _

__Louis looks at him with wide, bright, bloodshot eyes. Looks at him like he’s crazy. “Don’t make me _say it_ ,” he snaps. _ _

__“Say _what_?” Harry breathes, so fucking frustrated, eyes leaking again, bare feet sticking to the disgusting floor as he shifts his weight anxiously. The air between their bodies is suddenly drawn so tight; Louis is _humming_ , vibrating with a terrifying brightness as he stands there, braced against the counter, staring at Harry. _ _

__“I don’t want to tell you,” he says after a few beats. “Because if you don’t _know_ already, it’s probably going to freak you out, and I really don’t want that. It’s gonna make our friendship weird, and I’m, like, so fucking scared of that.” _ _

__Harry is about two seconds away from full-blown panic mode, heart in his throat and hands going numb, tingling up to his wrists as he clenches them in front of him. “Our friendship is already weird,” he says desperately. “Just, please, tell me, if it’s gonna fuck me up I just want you to get it over with.”_ _

__“Yeah,” Louis says, carding a hand through his hair and looking so fucking miserable that Harry wants to hold him together, keep him from flying apart into bits. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. Ugh,” he mumbles, hiding his face in his hands, taking a deep breath. “This is, um. This is really hard.”_ _

__“Just do it,” Harry begs, all tears and snot and worst-case scenarios. _You have some other boyfriend you didn’t want to tell me about. You want him to move in with us. You’re not actually gay, and this was just a really involved social experiment. You’re in love with Zayn_. “Please,” he begs._ _

__“Okay,” Louis says, sucking in a long, shuddering inhalation. “Okay. God. Um, so I know this was supposed to be just a casual, friends-with-benefits thing,” he starts, and Harry’s stomach plunges so hard it _hurts_ , a lead hook in his guts tugging him sharply earthward, the worst and sharpest thing. Louis swallows, closes his eyes, and continues, “and I let you believe that it was like that. But even before the first time we fooled around, like, _way_ before, I was already so in love with you,” Louis says in a disorganized rush. “I am _so_ sorry, it just got harder and harder to tell you and...yeah. I don’t know. I’m really sorry, Harry, I never meant for it to get like this.” _ _

__Harry _hears_ him, but he doesn’t process what he’s _saying_. It’s unfathomable information, it just kind of nudges up against him like a boat washing ashore, waves lapping at a beach, sand packed too hard to accept the sluice of water. Louis might be playing a really cruel trick on him, he’s not sure, though he doesn’t _look_ like he’s joking, slumped against the counter with the whole of his face hidden in the splay of his hands, ears and neck flushed a vivid, mortified red. _ _

__“Wait,” Harry says eventually, feeling very rooted to his stool, too stunned to move. He thumbs over the deep furrow in his forehead, squinting at the floor.“When did you decide it was supposed to be a casual, friends-with-benefits thing?”_ _

__“Well,” Louis says in a tight voice. “I figured you didn’t like me like that when I came on to you in the X-Factor house, and you just, like, patronizingly held my hand while we talked about boys for an hour. And then, after the first time we fucked, and you _left_ afterward and didn’t talk to me about it the next morning, so. Yeah.” _ _

__Harry stares at him, tries to really hear him over the terrible roar of blood in his ears. “You were _coming on_ to me in the X-Factor house?” _ _

__“ _Yes_ ,” Louis says, vaulting off the counter then, pacing around the kitchen with his hands worrying through his hair, and Harry hasn’t seen him like this _ever_ , not really, Louis is always manic and moving around, but his constant motion never feels like running, it never feels like he’s trying to escape the room, like he’s _afraid_. “I was already--fuck.” He stops, and hangs his head, breathing hard. _ _

__“Wait,” Harry says again, suddenly realizing he’s vibrating, skin cold and raised into goosebumps even though he feels like he’s burning up on the inside. “But...if. How come you wouldn’t let me _kiss_ you?” _ _

__And then Louis rounds on him, eyes narrowed and flashing and hard, two vibrant spots of color on his cheeks. “Because I’m not _like you_ ,” he spits out, voice so harsh and mad that Harry actually leans away from him, almost toppling off his stool. “I can’t just _kiss people_ and recover like that, I was trying not to _fucking torture_ myself, but _you kept pushing_ , you’re always pushing, you know that? You want everything, all the time, and you don’t even _think_ about what it might be like for the people who _love_ you,” he turns on his heel when he’s done, pacing away from Harry so he can brace his bands on the adjacent counter, bent over the sink panting. “But I could only resist you like three times because. Yeah. I’m sorry.” _ _

__Harry is so overwhelmed. It’s a lot. So much, _too much_ , and he can’t let himself just _believe_ that Louis loves him back because what if he’s dreaming? What if Louis is lying or fucking with him? And logically, Harry _knows_ he’s not, he can tell from the way Louis’s shoulders are shaking, the way his breath sounds so thick and wet in his throat. But still, still. Harry is too scared for logic; he’s spent so much time convincing himself that he can’t have Louis like this that it seems impossible to just _trust_ that he might have been _wrong_. It’s too easy, too good to be true. “I only wanted everything from _you_ ,” he finally says, voice low and hoarse from so many tears, so much exhaustion. “I only pushed because I _wanted_ to kiss _you_.” _ _

__“You want to kiss everyone,” Louis says, turning around and crossing his arms, glaring. “You were kissing some girl last night; you’re always kissing girls, this is all _easy_ for you and--”_ _

__Harry has a fleeting moment of clarity, and it hits him squarely in the chest that Louis just said, only moments ago, that he was _in love with him_. His stomach plummets, his mouth goes dry, and although pieces are coming together, they’re still not assembling into a whole. Regardless, _Louis_. Louis _loves him_. All those marks, all those touches, and last night, all those kisses. They felt like they meant something because _they did?__ _

__“I did that because of you!” he yelps. “I kiss girls because of you, so it doesn’t seem like I’m _obsessed with you_ , which I am,” he confesses, swallowing nervously, sliding off the stool and crowding Louis up against the other counter, Louis whose teeth are grit so hard there’s something twitching in his jaw, Louis whose eyes are so wet and glistening and scared, flicking between Harry’s eyes and his pout. “God, will you just _listen to me_ , will you let me--” _ _

__Harry moves in to kiss Louis because that seems like a way better method of explanation than using _words_ , which come very slowly and don’t mean very much, but Louis catches his wrists in his hands as he leans in, holding him at a distance, fingers cutting into his quickening pulse. “ _Stop_ ,” he says, voice so high and strangled and breathy with panic. “I’m so bad at pushing you away, so you have to stop.” _ _

__“ _Then don’t push me away_ ,” Harry says desperately, their brows nodding together as Louis’s grip weakens, one of his arms sliding around Harry’s back and drawing him close, even as he’s trying to shove him off. “I’m trying to tell you I love you _back_.” _ _

__Louis makes a sound somewhere between a laugh and a bark, a cough and a sob, sharply turning his head so Harry catches the side of his face instead of his lips. “ _Don’t_ ” Louis says. “You love _everything_ , you cry when a dog has three legs! You can’t _love_ me the same way I love--”_ _

__“ _How_ did you decide all this for me?” Harry rasps, mouth open on the sharp line of Louis’s cheekbone, tongue flicking out reflexively to taste his sweat. “Like, how do you _know_ how I love you? What do you want me to say?” _ _

__“Fuck,” Louis swears, pushing his hands up into Harry’s shirt, fingers cold on the still-tender heat of his skin, palms firm and rough as they rake up Harry’s back. “I don’t know.” Then, again. “I’m so bad at pushing you away.”_ _

__Harry rubs his tears into Louis’s neck, he mouths messily up into his hair, over to the shell of his ear, so drunk and dizzy and dumb with the way Louis tastes, smells. “Stop _doing_ it then,” he begs, fists tightening in the front of Louis’s jersey. “What do you want to know? That I used to make myself come at the X-Factor house listening to your _sleep_ breathing? That I smell your dirty clothes when I do the laundry? That I imagine what it would be like to _wake up_ with you every morning even though it hurts to think about because I don’t get to? What do you want to hear, there are so many stupid, pathetic things, I write _songs_ about you Louis, I--”_ _

__Louis cuts him off with a kiss, fierce and bruising and tear-salty, one of his hands cupping the curve of Harry’s cheek and tilting him back and _fuck_. _ _

__Harry melts into it, his ribs aching from the force of his heart ramming against them, hard enough to _hurt_ , hard enough to break him open. Louis holds him too tight and kisses him wet and deep and stinging, chewing on his lower lip before sucking it into his mouth, hands all over his spine then down the back of his joggers, drawing him crushingly close with firm handfuls of his ass. “Come here,” he exhales into his mouth, “God, you smell so good I can hardly...ugh, Harry.” He licks his lips open, clumsy with want as he inches his fingers into the crack of Harry’s ass and spreads him apart, and Harry wonders how he could have _missed this_ , the lost, desperate purity in Louis’s eyes when he looks at him. “I love you so much,” Louis murmurs, “Guess I was so wrapped up in it I--”_ _

__“Me, too,” Harry breathes. “I love you, too, I’ve been so fucked up over it, m’sorry.”_ _

__“S’okay, just, kiss me now?” Louis begs and, _yes_ , he will, he’ll kiss him forever. _ _

__He grinds Louis into the counter with his hips, swallowing all of his whimpers and groans, loving the way he bends and weakens and surges against him, greedy hands and such soft, wet lips. “Take me to your bed,” Harry rasps into the corner of his mouth, holding onto Louis’s shoulders like either of them might disappear if he doesn’t, knuckles white as he ruts against the plane of Louis’s thigh. “Wanna make you come in your bed.”_ _

__Louis shudders, burying his face in Harry’s neck and sliding his hands up to to the dip of his back. “First, please tell me,” he says, voice all breath and tremor, “that this is real.”_ _

__“It’s real, I’m real,” Harry promises, talking to himself as much as he’s talking to Louis, needing as much reassurance, as much proof. “You, too?” he asks, nuzzling into Louis’s hair, inhaling his sweat, the smell of London Sunday morning and grass and dirt and fog. And this is _really happening_ , Louis is really smiling that huge against his pulse, Louis is really holding him that tight, too tight to properly breathe, hands splayed over his skin, teeth at his throat._ _

__“Me, too,” Louis tells him. “I think. God, I don’t know, this could be right out of my head, I could be dreaming,” he says, voice snagging over a breathless laugh as he pushes a hand through Harry’s hair, eyes so fucking bright as he tilts his head back to look at him. Then, after a second of loaded silence he blurts, “Do you _really_ write songs about me?” _ _

__Harry laughs then, really laughs, frantic and bubbling out of him, disbelief slowly shifting into manic joy because this _is_ real, he can tell, he can tell because it’s perfect, but also because it isn’t _perfect_. He has a terrible headache, there is alcohol and fruit juice spilled all over the counter, and he’s pretty sure someone puked in their kitchen sink; Louis’s teeth are chattering, and he has bags under his eyes from sleeping poorly, not sleeping at all. They’re both kind of wrecked, but they’re right here, surrounded by party ruins, helplessly clutching each other in the world’s dirtiest flat. “I write _so many songs_ about you,” Harry says very seriously. “Like, probably every single one I haven’t shown you. And I only haven’t shown them to you because they’re obviously _about_ you, was afraid you’d find out.” _ _

__Louis grins at him, hands all over his hair, his shoulders, greedy and rough and mauling. “ _Fuck_ , Harry, how could you _not_ know I loved you? How did you _miss_ that? I can’t keep my hands off you; I can’t stop _staring at you_. I thought for sure, _for sure_ , you had to know. Or are you just so used to _everyone_ staring at you?” he teases then, smile impossible bright as he nips at Harry’s jaw. _ _

__Harry hides his face in his shoulder, breath catching because it kind of turns him on when Louis _teases him_ , kind of makes his stomach tie up in a tangle of rippling heat. “Will you please take me to bed?” he asks then, very deliberately rolling his hips, pushing his thickening cock into the solid heat of Louis’s thigh. “I just want you so bad, don’wanna _wait_ anymore, just want you, want you.” _ _

__“Ah, fuck, yes,” Louis breathes, pushing back up against Harry so their erections drag together, so good and so hot and so much _better_ now that Harry knows for certain this isn’t going to be the last time, he doesn’t have to touch Louis through a haze of grief. “Your bed though, yeah? Not mine, I can’t make it down the stairs, I don’t think,” Louis says, mouth so slick and wet and open as he rucks the neck of Harry’s shirt down over his shoulder so he can mouth and bite across it._ _

__“Okay,” Harry murmurs, disentangling himself from Louis just long enough to drag him across the living room by his hand. There are more bottles in here, bottles and streamers and _smashed cake_ in the _carpet_ for some reason, and Harry would be annoyed but he can’t be anything other than _ecstatic_ , beaming so hard his cheeks hurt as he unlocks his room with tremulous hands and pushes Louis inside, Louis and his muddy cleats, his sweat-stained jersey. _ _

__He stares at him there for a moment, eyes so wide as he drinks him in, his small, solid build and sucked-in cheeks and soft, soft hair and eyes so terrifically blue they hurt to look at. “I’m sorry I left that first time,” he mumbles, pulling his shirt over his head. “It was only because I was worried about how much I wanted you. Didn’t want to scare you away. And then I came back, and you had passed out.”_ _

__“I’m sorry I passed out,” Louis answers, bending to unlace his cleats before kicking them off. “I’m sorry I wasn’t brave enough to try anything with you until I was too pissed to stop myself.”_ _

__Louis is only half out of his football clothes before Harry is on top of him, pushing him into his bed and crawling over him on all fours, mouth all over his bare chest, his heaving ribs. “Doesn’t matter, you’re here now,” he murmurs. “Lemme make you come now, yeah?”_ _

__“Yeah,” Louis breathes, smoothing a hand through Harry’s curls, dragging him down roughly to kiss. “I’ll let you do anything.”_ _

__So, Harry guesses he was _wrong. There is a sixth time after all.__ _


End file.
